Roxana Saberi

Believing it was the only way to save her life and regain her freedom, Roxana finally confessed. "They put me under a lot of emotional stress and pressured me to give false confessions. In the end, I did."

It wasn't until she met other prisoners at Evin that Saberi, ashamed and humiliated, rediscovered her courage and her conscience. With her were civil rights defenders, student activists and members of the Bahá'í community, Iran's largest religious minority all of whom had been persecuted and jailed for their deep convictions and beliefs.

They all refused to give in to the pressure of the prison guards and interrogators and told Saberi they would rather sacrifice their freedom and even their lives than give in.

On hearing their commitment and courage, Saberi felt the need to recant her false confessions and stand up to her persecutors. "When I told the guard I wanted to deny [the accusations], he said that he knew all the time that I was being forced to confess something that was not true.

That made me think how often these people fabricate charges to falsely accuse others and force them to give false confessions."